I swear to Goddess my life, especially our financial life, never stays consistent – not sure if it’s us, the economy, our jobs, or what, but I can’t make hide nor hair of any of it…one week it seems we’re ok, then the next I review the overall numbers and we’re down – we try to find ways to cut back on spending, but I hate to say it we’re at bare bones as it is – with the ever increasing cost of living our meager income isn’t keeping up – some would say it’s not meager but alas it is compared to the increasing cost of living – I am not one to try and decide between eating and our Mortgage – I’d like to find a way to handle both, that’s not too much to ask is it?

I think I mentioned this last week – we got our equity statement and with the shortage on the equity our payment has gone up by $80.00/mos, this too is causing a strain on our finances, and the overall financial picture.

So now it’s come down to the: How do we bring in more income? We’re looking at several options, nothing concrete quite yet, but we’re tossing around some ideas:

1. Hubby can do more of what he’s doing for his customer @ Work – maintaining fish tanks while people are out of town for extended periods – sort of like the guys with my company or those who work w/Screen Gems and end-up going out of state for Movie productions

2. I can try again to do something with my photography – hubby tells me all the time that he hears customers at work lamenting that they want professional style pics of their pets, but no one affordable to do it – I’ll do it!

3. I can also try to get my book reviews into a publication of some kind and get paid for it…then again I don’t know how that works exactly as I am sure I need the publishers permission first…research to be done there.

4. Possibly doing some PetSitting, we love animals and all four of our furbabies are amicable to other animals, so it would be somewhat easy to do.

Those are just some vague ideas we’ve thrown around…now onto why the budget is not making me happy AGAIN, see below – we managed to keep our extraneous spending down to a minimum but two runs to Harris Teeter for missing grocery items caused a bit of a jump from last week – then I over budgeted our finances for the week and ended up pulling funds in from our Merrill Account to cover that overage…UGH UGH UGH:

$36.88

Remaining from W/E 09/08/13

$518.08

Lara W/E 09/22/13 Salary, Pay Date 9/27

$17.23

Amt. Spent

$215.13

Jimmy W/E 09/22/13 Salary

$19.65

Avail. Starting

$733.21

$1.65

KTC

$19.65

Avail. Starting

$1.74

Harris Teeter

$733.21

Total Pay

$12.77

Harris Teeter

$752.86

Avail. For Bills

$1.07

McDonalds

$6.27

Adjustment

$17.23

$746.59

$15.00

In From Merrill

$761.59

Alright here goes with the breakdown – the money for Citi was transferred to our savings account to be paid out to them with this Friday’s paycheck so I am sending them more than $125.00, the $100 for the car payment satisfied September’s payment and now we’ll be scrounging for October’s payment as it’s due on the 6th…we don’t have it budgeted for a couple more weeks yet, STRESS STRESS STRESS!

$761.59

$70.00

Brigades Boys & Girls Club

$691.59

$5.00

OT Solutions

$686.59

$200.00

Groceries

$486.59

$25.00

Jimmy’s Money

$461.59

$25.00

Dinner, 9/13

$436.59

$40.00

Gas

$396.59

$25.00

Cat & Dog Food

$371.59

$100.00

Credit Accept.

$271.59

$115.00

Progress Energy, Bal. Due: $162.00

$156.59

$125.00

Citi

$31.59

$31.59

7%

$2.21

$2.21

$29.38

In actuality the lump sum cash withdrawal we take every week has had one benefit I’ve seen as of late and that is we’re actually coming in under budget on just about everything – so the cash jar at work is pretty full – rounding in at about $75.00, which is the budget I set for Halloween (costumes & pumpkins for carving), so we’re set for that! Whoop Whoop! One Small Victory There!

$761.59

$70.00

Brigades Boys & Girls Club

$691.59

$5.00

OT Solutions

$686.59

$320.00

Cash for Week

$366.59

$100.00

Credit Accept.

$266.59

$115.00

Progress Energy

$151.59

$125.00

Citi

$26.59

$2.21

Merrill Transfer

$24.38

So there’s that…am I happy with it? No I wish there was some way we could pay the Mortgage Payment on time every month – I am taking suggestions from those who read my blog – seems I am either mis-allocating my funds or we’re doing something terribly incorrect here!